Hosteria Las Dunas El Calafate

... probably arrive more around 11:30pm. Hopefully you arenīt trying to connect anywhere else!

Third, your flight crew will be coming by with meal service soon. Donīt even bother asking what will be served - you have about a 90% chance of getting a stale ham and cheese sandwich! Actually, this is not limited to Argentina - ham and cheese is the flight food staple for all of South America! If you fly LAN you may get a turkey and cream cheese sandwich with a mini alfajor instead ...

... to be up close and personal with these things.

We couldn't get to the Upsala Glacier (largest one in the park) as the water was too blocked up with icebergs (imagine the train companies in the UK using THAT as an excuse!) but we saw Spegazzini which has cliffs 120m high! Luckily the weather cleared and we got some great views! All we needed to complete the picture was Scrat from Ice Age running along the top after his acorn!

There was also a ...

... 10m in diameter crashiong into the water in front of us a short distance away, the noise is just indescribable and it creates a wave that travels through the lake. The glacier itself is massive, measuring 4km wide, 150km long and 200m high with only 50m of that above the water line so its pretty big. The puerto moreno glacier is not the largest glacier in the park though, but it is the most famous as it is not receding like most other glaciers wordwide with global ...

... along the point directly across from the glacier. The glacier goes back as far as the eye can see and climbs up the sides of the mountains like growing ivy. Again in the words of Jon Krakauer, "[the glacier] is a tongue of blue ice corrugated by a nubbly rash of seracs and crevasses". Just awesome. The blue/turquoise ice is so artifical looking it appears to have come from the Matterhorn at Disneyland. We spent nearly five ...

... a room with a stranded bicyclist from Brazil named Thiago. Later a couple who had been riding on a motorcycle came in. The wind had wiped them out, but they were okay. Outside, the wind was so strong it was difficult to walk in it. I found out that it was in fact 60 to 70 mph. All I can say is, thank God I hadn't been on a dirt road. The next day I got up early, hopefully to get over the last 10 miles of gravel road before the wind picked up again ...

My last night in Ushuaia was spent in the now infamous Irish bar The Dublin... Why don't they shut earlier then 5am...?? As usual it seemed like a great idea to have just one more drink for the road, oh then another etc before you know it its 4am and the ...

... worried that I had packed waaaaaay too many winter clothes but let me tell you that we have worn almost all of them (todayīs temp, after taking into considration the wind chill factor was a lovely MINUS 4 dergrees!!). Every one has implied that we have brought the cold weather with us as it was 22 degrees last week!! Sam keeps going crook because he is sick of having to put on and take off his coat and hat every time he leaves the house! And as for the ...

... back out of town for Tuesday and then walked to our accommodation.

Katie had tried to book us somewhere nice to stay for my birthday (MONDAY MARCH 10TH, ahem cough splutter...) but when both places were booked out she accepted a recommendation from one of them for the small hotel opposite.

She booked our usual double room with double bed and was even promised "gorgeous views" out of the window, which sounded good.

It was about a 10 ...

... what can you do. the woman in charge told us there was going to be a party there that night with music until 5 in the morning. yeah. so we asked for a spot far from that. that night, however, we didnīt even hear a party, so iīm not sure if there really was one. the next day we grabbed a bus to the center of town. ours, however, must have been the one that takes the long route. 25 minutes ...

... Bolson with us, another Israeli hot spot we are told. How do they all know where each other is? They seem to like hippie areas, nature and pot. Israelis both individuals and in the large groups have become fascinating to us and we canīt seem to stop observing them and asking them questions and we are even considering going to Israel to take a look for ourselves, we have met so many. The young adventurers seem to dream of freedom for the whole time they are doing ...